


Little Bit Broken

by LivingThoughtcrime (Asushunamir)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Insomnia, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-24 22:32:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17712893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asushunamir/pseuds/LivingThoughtcrime
Summary: Pidge is having trouble sleeping, and Shiro notices.





	Little Bit Broken

**Author's Note:**

> This wasn't intended as Shidge when I wrote it, but you can read it that way if you'd like to!  
> Also, this is based on my own experiences with insomnia, I don't speak for anyone else with these issues.
> 
> I hope someone enjoys my rambling :)

Fighting a war tends to take it’s toll. Physically, mentally.. Shiro knows this better than most. He can feel it weighing on him now, what they’re doing. They kill people. Bad people, but people all the same. And for every ship they blow up full of the bad people, there’s a few good people that they can’t reach in time. There’s been planets full of slaves that they couldn’t free, worlds plagued by sickness that they couldn’t do anything to cure. It’s hard to even think about how much pain there is in the universe. Sometimes, it seems as though nothing they do will ever be enough to combat it. As powerful as Voltron is, they are still only a handful of people against the universe.

They all deal with it in their own ways. To many of them, including himself, it’s all a matter of compartmentalizing. But trying to ignore the weight of the world on your shoulders, lost in the void of space, is an impossible task. You can keep it up for a while, but it’s bound to effect you eventually.  
And now, he finds himself here, watching Pidge tap on their holoscreen with frantic, jabbing motions. The two of them are in the common area, dubbed ‘The Living Room’ by the crew. Pidge is resting against the couch(it’s weirdly squishy, like jello, but a couch all the same), and Shiro is sitting on it, as per it’s intended use. It’s far too late for either of them to be up, training is scheduled in six earth hours from now. 

Normally, Shiro would be in bed by now, maintaining his strict sleep schedule and setting a good example for the others. But over the past several nights, he’d noticed that Pidge was always the last of them to go to bed. Then, he had seen that they were always the first one awake, greeting the rest of them in the morning(they all still called it morning, despite space’s lack of a day/night cycle) and muttering ‘bout time’ before accompanying the group to breakfast. Finally, Shiro had begun wondering about the purple bruise-like crescents under the kid’s eyes, hidden by their glasses but easy to spot if you knew where to look. All evidence suggested that Pidge was not going to sleep late, rather, they weren’t going to sleep at all. 

His suspicions had been all but confirmed when Pidge fell over during training, amber eyes drooping shut and body crumpling to the tile. They’d brushed it off the next day, claiming dehydration had caused it, and proceeded to avoid all further questions about the matter by hiding out in Green.

Now, he watches them from the couch, noting their twitchy fingers and squinting eyes. Shiro decides the best way to fix a problem is to get to the point.

“Pidge?” He asks, and they squawk, spinning to face him. Their holoscreen falls off their lap with a loud thunk.

“Have you been here the whole time?” Their eyes are huge, and they blink rapidly, as if that would clear the rawness of exhaustion from them.

It’s a worrying reaction, but he’s come across worse before. Ignoring their question, he presses onward. “Pidge, you should really be asleep. This isn’t healthy.” 

With each word, their eyes flicker away and back, like they can’t bear to watch him talk about this. They say nothing, but Shiro knows better than to keep speaking; they’ll get overwhelmed. They’ll talk when they’re ready. Pidge adjusts their glasses several times, focus switching from the floor to somewhere near his shoulders, not wanting to look him in the eyes. They start to pick at their nails. Shiro fiddles with the hem of his shirt to help them feel a little less awkward, or at least less alone in their awkwardness. 

“I’m fine.” The words on their own are almost believable, but they reach up at the same time to rub an eye with their fist, and Shiro catches their shaky inhale of breath. 

He so badly wants to leap over and wrap them in a hug, but knowing Pidge, it’s a bad idea. They don’t react well to sudden movements, even it’s just someone trying to hug them. Those damned war instincts again.  
Instead, he slides over and lowers himself to the ground next to them. There’s infinitesimal stiffening of their shoulders, but they relax after only a few moments. Pidge’s head tilts until it’s resting on his shoulder, and he feels hair tickle his cheek. 

There’s silence, just long enough to be awkward. It could be seconds, or minutes, he’s not sure. Then, “I can’t.”

“Yeah?” He prompts. 

Pidge begins to sigh, turning into a yawn halfway through. “I- I try, but…” They trail off, trying to find the words. “It’s like my body forgot how. It’s so stupid, why can’t I do this simple thing that every other being in the universe can?” They’re frustrated, but any anger in their words is overshadowed by sheer pain. 

They take a shaky breath, “I just can’t stop thinking. About everything. I keep replaying the times I could’ve saved more people if I’d been better. It feels like their deaths are my fault.”

Shiro wants to say something, he wants to reassure them it’s not their fault, but he’s asked himself the same question too many times. Trying to tell them it’s not their fault, even if it’s true, is only hypocritical of him, and unhelpful to them. Instead, he gradually lifts his arm, moving it along their back before draping it across their shoulders, making sure they can tell what he’s doing. They sit in silence for a while, so long Shiro wonders if they’ve somehow fallen asleep.

Their voice pierces the silence, soft, but sounding tortured enough to make even a dead man’s heart break. “I can’t stop thinking and I can’t sleep. Shiro… Am I broken?” Their voice cracks on the last word, and he hears them swallow as they try not to cry.

Shiro hesitates a moment, trying to find the right words. “I think we’re all a little broken.” He hurries on before they take that the wrong way. “But that’s why we have each other. So that we can help repair each other when we break. And there’s times when we can't mend the cracks, but that’s okay too. We can always just find a different way to work.”

“You’ll be able to sleep, Pidge. It’s not permanent, I promise you.”

They’re crying, but they look calm. “And for what it’s worth, Pidge,” he adds, smiling down at them, “I think you’re amazing, and you always will be. No matter how many cracks you end up with.” 

Pidge tilts their head to look him in the eyes, and for all the tear-tracks staining their cheeks, they smile back at him. “Thanks, Shiro.”

The two of them sit against the couch for what could be hours, his arm across their shoulders, their head on his shoulder. It takes a while, but Pidge’s breathing evens out, becoming calm and steady. Shiro lets his head rest atop of theirs, flattening down their fluffy mane. The lights have since gone out, the two of them still enough for the motion sensors to register the room as empty. 

Pidge hums sleepily, and reaches both their arms up to wrap around his waist. “Night.” They say, barely even a whisper as they bury their face deeper into his shoulder.

“G’night, Pidge.” 

Less than a minute later, both of their snores fill the room.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a lot of me projecting... Had some really bad insomnia last night, and this is what I wanted someone to say to me. I went through and edited a bit today, and voila. I'm not really happy with how it turned out, but I hope someone else enjoys it! 
> 
> Oh, and fun fact: I originally wrote this as being Pidge and Hunk.


End file.
